I read this on another forum so I bought some yesterday to try.

"My folks got this idea from the owner of a pick-your-own orchard: unsweetened grape, and *only* grape flavored Koolaid, four packets to a gallon of water and spraying that on the fruit in your trees keeps the birds away. And the squirrels too, I've found.  I looked this up to see if it really was a thing and Wikipedia has a description of exactly this and that it irritates the birds' lungs enough that they stay clear. So I tried that last year on my first crop of cherries and it worked! Until it rained. I went outside as the skies let up and found I had two cherries left. Those scrub jays were just waiting for the moment."

I may mix a small batch just to see and put in cheap spray bottle since I dont want to clog my sprayer. But I have a plastic owl too so not sure what would get credit if it works.

Okay.  We'll keep the fig trees shorter and build some wren houses.  Hopefully they will drive the pigeons and doves away!

If you have the time and resources, build a frame out of PVC pipe (bigger than the tree, obviously) and drape the bird netting over that.  It hasn't come to that for me yet though, I use mostly organza bags.   

Hi, MyDogMike,

We had frames and netting over some container tomatoes.  Birds still got into the tomatoes, and some lizards ended up getting strangled.  Brief story of one that was saved from our netting here (http://www.organically.us/2014/06/sunday-finds-in-yarden.html).  

The sheer volume of our garden and number of trees will make framing and netting prohibitive.  

We have roof rats here too, so they will most likely tear through or chew through the netting. We're constructing some poison traps for the rats to access and feed from, but cannot take the poison with them. The roof rats had been getting to the strawberries.  How in the world did people survive without grocery stores before?  LOL

I have tried every trick in the book,and I have finally come to the conclusion that the only effective way to keep birds and varmints out of the fruit is to post a 24 hour sentry with a shotgun at each tree. If you aren't willing to do this,you might want to consider a new hobby.

Hm..  Pino, that is interesting about the chickens and ducks.  My son just got some chickens for his garden to keep out locust.  If it isn't one thing, it is another...  Wow!

I haven't seen crows, but really aren't sure what we have around here.  Now I'll have to keep an eye out.  Looking at the house wren pics, I think these are the birds that are all over home depot, especially in the garden centers.  They are pretty entertaining there...  and I never see insects.

Agrarian, I just want to have something for myself.  Some loss is expected, I guess.  

janni

My remarks weren't directed at you,nor did I mean to be offensive. I was simply stating what I consider to be true,and that is that frustration is just a part of this hobby.

Agrarian, I wasn't offended.  Sorry if it came off that way.  Venting frustration, most likely... so we commiserate :)

Another thing you could do is put out something like a bird bath or some containers of water.  I've read that birds are after the water in the fruit and not necessarily the fruit themselves.  Whether that's true or not it probably couldn't hurt.  

Hi, MyDogMike,

We have three water plates set out in various parts of our yard which were mostly for the bees we keep.  I've seen evidence the birds are visiting. The water is refilled each morning with our watering system when our plants are watered, so there isn't any 'human' interaction to scare anything away.

So, we are going to build some wren houses, an american kestrel birdhouse (I have actually seen some type of hunting bird in our area - it attacked and killed a bird in our neighbors yard. I was astounded to see it happen).  The instructions say build it and they will come, so why not give it a go. We could potentially luck into an owl, maybe, which is just as good for me.  

I bought some sunflower seeds to grow some sunflowers ( I want to see what sunflower heads taste like too).  

Hi, mjc - good points on water placement. We're safe with two of the water plates, but one is under our pink peppercorn which is close to the other trees. We should probably put it somewhere else. 

I heard the birds scolding my dogs this morning. They were mad that the dogs were patroling around the trees. The dogs like to look for rats or lizards more but it helps that the birds don't like them. What is funny is that fact the birds will come and steal the dogs food and the dogs could careless unless the bird gets near the fence. The dogs would rather have people food..

Hi fattyfigs, that's a good one. :) We don't let our dogs out by themselves - they trample everything in pursuit of lizards, birds and sometimes bees.  We had a really nice garden with loads of multiple basil types until we got them. They would come in the house smelling fantastic (of basil).  Our plants just could not survive the dogs trampling all over.  They have a dog run now and get to go out when we go out.

How do you keep your dogs off the garden?  Does the dog food attract rats?

I bring the dog food in when I get home. I have all mine in pots or wine barrels. The small stuff are on the tables or that would probably pee on them! XD
My husband put a work cone outside to practice base ball swings and I tell them to pee on it..all is good until I leave. I see them thru the pic window every once in a while. Like lil kids if you don't watch them.  My figs in the house are less stay than outside! My daughter has a snoopy cat that gets into everything..I no soon put something down and that thing has to investigate. I squirt it a couple times with the water bottle so now when it goes near the figs it squints its eyes and looks at me. grr. 

That sounds pretty entertaining, fattyfigs :)  

My son and I shared a Peter's Honey fig today. The first, most ripe fig on the tree. Easy tug with the organza bag on it. Loosen up the bag and pop out the fig. Wow... I'm sold. My son said it was not fully ripe, and maybe the heat affected it somehow, but it was sweet, with something like a raspberry finish. Okay, we're keeping all our fig trees :)  

While we're talking about organza bags does anyone have a color that works best? I just bought green to cover up the ripe figs color but had a bird peck through to eat a green fig. Any color seem to scare them off a lot?

Put in a bird bath and some feeders .... I read that birds peck fruit for moisture also

Garrett4534, I was thinking about getting colored organza bags, but another person (In this thread or a linked thread?) said they all fade to white eventually.  I ended up with white, and had no pecking issues after that. In fact, I had slipped some disposable white seedling bags over the figs until the organza bags arrived and the figs weren't bothered with the seedling bags over them either.

Msfiggy, we do have water plates out.  We put out two wren gourd houses over the weekend.  I've been looking harder at what types of birds we have around here and I'm not really sure what they are yet.  I bought some sunflower seeds to grow some huge sunflowers.  We most likely have mockingbirds.  This should be fun :)

The next project will be a larger birdhouse for a predatory bird, american kestrel or a small owl.  I'm a bit excited about that too - that would be cool to have around.

I was always told you'll lose 1/3 of your tree to birds and squirrels, that's just how it is. I find that if I keep the tree on a smaller scale they're less likely to get eaten, so far that's worked for me. I also have a scaffolding all around the top of my large tree. My cats are always on patrol, that helps too.

Figsontheporch, that is a great photo :)  Perhaps if my trees were more mature and had more leaves that covered more figs it would be different.  We will be keeping the trees pretty small, probably 8' or less.  Is the scaffolding only for the cats?